History Forum / General / Archaeology / July 2009

Piss off with you essenes.

You and Thiering need to make up your minds concerning the accuracy and
utility of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry.  Were the Zurich and Tuscon
studies accurate?  And did or did they not support your theory?

Have you ever read Minze Stuiver, Paula J. Reimer, Edouard Bard, J.
Warren Beck, G. S. Burr, Konrad A. Hughen, Bernd Kromer, Gerry McCormac,
Johannes Van Der Plight and Marco Spurk, "INTCAL98 Radiocarbon Age
Calibration, 24,000-0 cal BP" in "Radiocarbon," Vol. 40, No. 3, 1998,
P.1041-1083?

I ask because the article by Rodley and Stuiver published in Radiocarbon
41, No. 2, relies on the work published in that article.  By the way,
1QpHab was not contaminated by glue, was it, David?

I doubt you have, but shall inquire anyway.  Have you read "Radiocarbon
Dating And The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Comment On 'Redating'” by Johannes
Van Der Plicht in "Dead Sea Discoveries" 14, 1, (2007), P. 77-89?

When you do read that article, pay particular attention to Figure 2 on
page 85. This chart compares the 1986, 1993, 1998, and 2004 calibration
data sets  of dendrochronologically dated wood for the time period 250
BCE - 250 CE. Thiering and Rodley hung their hats on the differences
between the 1986 and 1998 calibrations in their 1998 "Radiocarbon" article.

Nevertheless, you (and Thiering) are still stuck with the 1 sigma date
range of 88-2 BCE for 1QpHab, thus the Teacher must be dated firmly
before Jesus reached puberty even after the recalibration of the Zurich
and Tuscon results using the 1998 calibration curve. Even the 2 sigma
date ranges were 153-143 BCE and 120-5 BCE and those are in the 95%
probability range. That means if Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness,
he said and did all of those things attributed to the Teacher by the age
of six or so.  Quite a precocious child, wasn't he?

Or you can continue to dance on the pinhead that the particular piece of
papyrus laid about unused for anywhere from 100 years to about 30 years.
 Then and only then was the text of 1QpHab written on this piece of
papyrus.  Yes, David, I have read the polemics of Thiering and yourself
concerning your notions of the frugality of the Qumran community.  Your
case remains lamentably weak, yet you propound it infinitely.  Are you
living some post-modern version of Stravinsky's "La Sacre du Printemps"
 so you dance to your death as a sacrifice to the goddess Thiering just
as the heroine of Stravinsky's ballet dances to her death as a sacrifice
to the gods?

The choice between Geza Vermes and Barbara Thiering is stark.  The
theories of Vermes have been confirmed by paleography, radiocarbon
dating, archaeology, and the history that is known.  Thiering is a
conspiracy theorist who is compelled to cherry pick among the evidence
and argue against most of the evidence because it is just so darned
inconvenient to her conspiracy theory.

And why do you believe a quote from your Yahoo group is evidence of
anything except something you or Thiering have written at some point in
the past?